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Cyclists and the rules of the road

Re: Do cyclists need to stop at a stop sign? Aug. 2

Sat., Aug. 8, 2009

Re: Do cyclists need to stop at a stop sign? Aug. 2

An interesting and provocative article. Cycling is healthy, environmentally friendly and saves on road repairs. If Toronto (and Ottawa) spent more of their traffic dollars on secure cycling lanes, adequate bike parking and education to the car driving public, the city would be safer, less polluted and a greater pleasure to live in.

The Idaho Stop is indeed interesting and, for many, safer. De-cleating, de-clipping and coming to a full stop means that a cyclist ends up rolling through an intersection at a much slower speed, which slows traffic and offers less safety to the cyclist. I hope you will run the same study on motor vehicles.

When cycling, I nearly always try to go through an intersection next to a car (safer) and the number that come to a full stop is close to zero. More and more cars, in Ottawa at least, jump orange and red lights, roll (not to a stop) through stop signs and cut cyclists off on corners.

Cities in the not-so-distant future will indeed be safer and more cycle friendly. Those that delay implementing the necessary changes will, in time, regret their delay. Cities need to look at what it will take to make the road safer for cyclists and to make the driving public want to switch to this healthier form of transport.

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David S. Esdaile, MD, Ottawa

Inspired by the article, I went out to a four-way stop near my home and counted the number of automobiles that came to a full and complete stop over two hours. Result: of 72 cars, zero came to a full stop. So, by this reasoning, cyclists on average do a better job at stop signs than car drivers.

Of course, this debate is old and tiresome. Anyone who knows the law and statistics about stop-sign collision court cases knows that as long as you come to a full and complete stop, you are in the clear even if you pull out five feet in front of an oncoming car. While if that was a yield sign, plainly you did not yield and are in the wrong.

It is high time to replace all stop signs with yield signs and roundabouts at four-way stop intersections and stop this ridiculous and fruitless debate about who did or did not stop totally or maybe kept rolling a couple of inches, and focus on measures that actually boost safety. In England or the Netherlands you never see any stop signs and intersections are much safer.

Brad Snider, Ottawa

The problem with the Idaho Stop is that the city of Toronto has twice the population of the entire state of Idaho (approximately 1.2 million according to the 2008 U.S. census). While the Idaho Stop might be fine in a town like Boise, the number of cars and pedestrians on our city's streets makes it completely unsafe.

Brian Maclean and Jim Baross are completely correct when they say that maintaining the same rules for all road users is the only safe way to go for everyone. For every one cyclist who actually puts a foot down and stops at a stop sign or traffic light (or, indeed, streetcars with exiting passengers), I would estimate that 10 others don't bother, putting themselves and everyone else at the intersection at risk.

The ideal would be that all cyclists using Toronto's streets take a course similar to Humber College's motorcycle training program. Many of the safety and defensive techniques taught to would-be motorcyclists in a course like this would make cyclists much more aware of the road and traffic conditions around them.

The problem seems to be that cyclists don't see themselves as being on a vehicle. If we can educate them, at the same time as educating drivers to be more aware of them, we might see a decline in cyclist/car accidents.

Requiring cyclists to obey the rules of the road and respect things like stop signs and red lights isn't about making it more difficult for cyclists, but about making the roads safer for everyone. Congestion on Toronto streets demands it.

Kathy Hall, Toronto

I read this piece with a mixture of chagrin and amusement. I've been riding my bike to work for 32 years and I admit to Idaho Stops for the most part. Occasionally I stop when I come off a side street to a busy main route. What amuses and irritates me at the same time is the lack of context in this story. I suspect if one sat and observed at the intersection of any residential streets in Toronto, one would see that a majority of cars do not stop at stop signs. That has certainly been my impression in many years of biking and driving in Toronto. We used to call it a Quebec rolling stop but it's now a Toronto non-stop. If it comes to all of us living with the same rules, that is already the case.

If the Star wants to contribute to road safety, I suggest you do an investigation on the relative weight Toronto Police Services places on revenue generation as opposed to reducing risky driving. Focusing on cyclists not stopping at stop signs seems silly in a city where drivers run red lights with impunity.

Peter Crosby, Toronto

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